This man has some of the rewarding jobs in San Francisco
A young bride was wading in the ocean at China Beach when a wave hit her and tore her engagement ring from her finger. She searched desperately in the sand for it, but in vain – the ring, a family heirloom, was gone.
Distraught, the young woman called the ring finder, a service that brings people together with professional metal detectors around the world. Marshall Smith, San Francisco’s favorite ring finder, answered her call and met her on the beach at 9 a.m. the next morning. The chances of finding it again seemed slim at first, but he began to carefully comb the beach with his detector.
Suddenly Smith caught a strong signal in the wet sand. A bottle cap? No, something more shiny … bingo.
The metal detector Marshall Smith shows a ring that he found with his metal detector.
Douglas Zimmerman / SFGATE
As expected, the woman’s testimony on Smith’s blog is beaming: “Marshall found my one-of-a-kind engagement ring within 30 minutes of my arrival. I’m still in shock as I write this. I can never express how grateful I am to him for his willingness to appear despite the dire situation. ‘Thank you’ just doesn’t seem to be enough! “
Smith has all kinds of stories like this, from a woman whose ring slipped off her finger when her dog sped into the bushes to a man who lost his precious trailer in a bicycle accident. When he manages to find the lost jewelry, he takes a picture of the radiant person holding it and adds it to his blog – what he calls the “Book of Smiles”.
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“They’re usually desperate, so I’ll come to your aid,” Smith told me. “They’re just so happy … they’re frightened and I can help them and make them feel better, and you can tell when you give them their ring back. You cry, I get a lot of hugs. ”
Metal detector Marshall Smith is performing some recreational metal searches on a trip to Ocean Beach, San Francisco on August 26, 2021.
Douglas Zimmerman / SFGATE
Ring Finder was founded in 2009 by Chris Turner, a metal detector from Vancouver, Canada. More than 400 detectorists are stationed around the world; they pay an annual membership fee of $ 65 to be listed on the site’s directory.
Smith has been listed on the website for about a decade.
“I’ve been doing this since I was a little kid … but I took it really seriously 10 years ago when I spent some money on a decent metal detector,” he said. “I was really looking for a way to pay for my metal detector and I found the ring finder.”
Metal detector Marshall Smith uses a shovel, left, to pick up a metal earring he found on a recreational metal search trip to Ocean Beach, San Francisco, on August 26, 2021.
Douglas Zimmerman / SFGATE
Ring finders typically work on a reward basis plus a mobilization fee (Smith charges around $ 25 to $ 30 locally to cover his gasoline). But money doesn’t seem to be the main motivating factor for these detectives.
“It’s not a business, it’s a service, some kind of charity,” Smith explained.
James Badgett, another ring finder who covers the Castro Valley area, echoed this opinion.
Metal detector Marshall Smith is performing some recreational metal searches on a trip to Ocean Beach, San Francisco on August 26, 2021.
Douglas Zimmerman / SFGATE
“If I see a situation where you really don’t have the $ 35, I’ll be looking for the ring anyway because I’m not doing it to make a boatload of money,” Badgett said. “I do this because I know what it is like to lose something that you have sentimental value for.”
Most ring search jobs come from people who have lost something on the beach, in their garden while gardening or picnicking or doing sports in the park. Smith says he gets most of the calls about lost items at Crissy Field in San Francisco.
Usually someone stumbles upon the ring finders by Googling something like “How to find a lost ring”. But often there are a number of unfortunate events that lead to this step.
Metal detector Marshall Smith is performing some recreational metal searches on a trip to Ocean Beach, San Francisco on August 26, 2021.
Douglas Zimmerman / SFGATE
“They usually spend two or three hours walking their fingers through the sand and then renting a metal detector,” Smith said. “They won’t know how to use it, they look for a couple of hours and then call me … because it takes years to learn to use a metal detector.”
Both Smith and Badgett have success rates of 85 to 95%, depending on how exactly the person says where they lost their ring and how much time has passed. The chance of recovering something that has been lost on the beach for a week or more drops dramatically as other (recreational) metal detectors regularly carry out checks. The chances are also reduced if you lost your ring due to the current in the water.
When these people can’t find it, they say it’s usually because it was never there – either because the person confused the place they lost it or because another metal detector made them do it.
The metal detector Marshall Smith shows his collection of favorite objects that he found with his metal detector.
Douglas Zimmerman / SFGATE
“When I search an area, I can 100% guarantee it isn’t there,” Badgett said. “Even at the risk of sounding arrogant, I’m pretty good at it. … I will definitely not miss your ring. “
To illustrate his point, he related an incident where a man got into an argument with his wife and threw his ring into a chain link fence and then immediately regretted it. He called a few other detectorists who told him it was impossible to find the ring next to the metal fence, but when Badgett showed up, he found it within five minutes.
To look for missing jewelry, ring finders begin by working out a manageable search area and then methodically combing it in a pattern called “gridding”.
The metal detector Marshall Smith shows with his metal detector a rare Chinese coin that he found in Half Moon Bay in 2019.
Douglas Zimmerman / SFGATE
“Basically, you walk back and forth in the defined area like a lawnmower, and if you can’t find it … you go the other side and do the lawnmower pattern in the other direction,” says Smith. “So you cross the same area twice. And I actually found things in the second pattern. “
Unless they immediately drop everything to help someone find their lost engagement ring, Smith and Badgett are both recreational treasure hunters, too. It’s a hobby that requires patience but definitely not without its rewards.
One of Smith’s favorite discoveries is an 1878 Chinese silver dollar coin that he discovered on the beach in Half Moon Bay. In one particularly wild story, Badgett found a class ring in Santa Cruz that happened to belong to his Washington-based cousin.
Metal detector Marshall Smith is performing some recreational metal searches on a trip to Ocean Beach, San Francisco on August 26, 2021.
Douglas Zimmerman / SFGATE
“Finding a cousin ring two states away in the area I live was absolutely blown away,” Badgett said.
They also found some strange things, like a fully loaded gun, a dead pet buried in a metal box, and a warehouse of old coins and jewelry that were probably stolen. But none of these strange discoveries is most rewarding.
“There’s nothing like someone who burst into tears for getting their ring back,” Badgett said. “For me that means more than anything else: You got someone’s treasure back.”
Metal detector Marshall Smith picks up a metal earring he found on August 26, 2021 while on a leisure trip to Ocean Beach, San Francisco.
Douglas Zimmerman / SFGATE
